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What happened to "asking for help"?

alwinhoogerdijk.com

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Re: What happened to "asking for help"?

#41

Post by hesselink »

dcminter wrote: post #37
gaustin wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also quicker, easier and more effective than navigating most companies' support tools. I don't want to spend half an hour or more registering, confirming and entering a bug report that will most likely be ignored.* * A company taking reports seriously in a visible way is a rare occurrence in my experience.

It's the ignoring not the complexity that's frustrating. I'm suffering from an annoying bug in Google Groups. I've raised it a few times and it disappears into the void. Next time there's a bug, even if it's serious, will I bother? Probably not - my expectations are set. -- (Edit) Incidentally, for software issues this makes a public bug tracker something of a marketing tool. Even knowing my bug rather than lost with…

Google is especially bad in this regard. I'm a software developer, and I can probably write a pretty decent bug report. I'm also available to further look into the issue, and can use development tools. I help fix bugs if I find them in many products we use. But with Google, I just don't bother. There's often no way to even file a proper bug report, just some Google Group, and never any feedback.

Re: What happened to "asking for help"?

#43

Post by jellicle »

I think the average customer service response from a company nowadays goes something like this:

Me: "I'm having a problem with the fribbulator. It appears to be broken - the metal is snapped cleanly in two."

Them: {no response}

Me: "I sent you this last week but didn't receive a reply. I'm having a problem with the fribbulator. It appears to be broken - the metal is snapped cleanly in two."

Them: "Here are instructions on how to reinstall Windows. Please see our FAQ as well. Did this response answer your question [Y/N]?"

That sort of response might as well include a .gif of a raised middle finger. Companies that intend to provide better-than-this customer service should factor in customer conditioning into their plans. The customer has been conditioned to complain publicly first. You'll have to fix that explicitly if you don't want it to happen to you.

Re: What happened to "asking for help"?

#44

Post by shaggyfrog »

jellicle wrote: post #43

I think the average customer service response from a company nowadays goes something like this: Me: "I'm having a problem with the fribbulator. It appears to be broken - the metal is snapped cleanly in two." Them: {no response} Me: "I sent you this last week but didn't receive a reply. I'm having a problem with the fribbulator. It appears to be broken - the metal is snapped cleanly in two." Them: "Here are instructio…

This kind of conversation happens all the time with "support" accounts on Twitter. I tweeted the @ParallelsCares account for help and ended up in or around the third circle of hell [1] trying to get a simple answer to a simple question [2].

I think customer conditioning, as you suggest, is part of the solution. Training also needs to include learning how to thoughtfully write a response, which would then show empathy. Instead what we have are a lot of Twitter support accounts whose names end with "Cares" run by a lot of people who don't.

[1] https://twitter.com/#!/shaggyfrog/status/100974626112421888 [2] https://twitter.com/#!/shaggyfrog/status/100727705112285184

Re: What happened to "asking for help"?

#45

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

gaustin wrote: post #11
wccrawford wrote: post #2

The problem is the normal response to their questions. Most companies, or even just people, will respond negatively to bug reports, especially if they aren't good reports. This has trained the users that they shouldn't bother asking. Instead, they do what gets them results: They complain publicly. See, you can't ignore them if they're speaking publicly. Everyone else gets to see the problem and response, or lack ther…

It's also quicker, easier and more effective than navigating most companies' support tools. I don't want to spend half an hour or more registering, confirming and entering a bug report that will most likely be ignored.* * A company taking reports seriously in a visible way is a rare occurrence in my experience.

In the Android Market, there's a "Contact Developer" button for every app. Click it and write an email. No "registering" or complex forms to fill out.

In my game, there's also a "feedback" button. I say early in the app description to please contact me if you have any problems. I answer any questions that come in, and am polite even to the insulting emails. Well, at least mostly polite. ;) And I typically answer them in hours, at most.

And yet I still get 1-star "complaint" posts that hurt my ratings, from people who have never contacted me. Frequently they just say that they hate the ads, which are only shown between levels, and therefore don't interfere with game-play. I guess I should work for free?

I don't think it helps to justify their behavior; if they make the least attempt and give up, that's one thing, but if they don't even try when dealing with an indie app developer who's obviously not some faceless company, that's just lazy (and in many cases selfish -- they can pay to turn off ads, after all, and the games don't write themselves). It's the EASY thing for them to do, and they're being jerks.

Or if, as you say, they've been hurt before, they're taking out hurt from Faceless Corporation on me, which is pretty much indistinguishable from being a jerk from my point of view.

Re: What happened to "asking for help"?

#46

Post by kyebosh »

Being a "customer review" log, I think the sentiment of the comments posted are valid. If the App crashes, you assign a star rating accordingly. Sounds exactly like what one should expect.

It's unforgiving out in the wild. It might not be ideal, but that's the system we have (until support systems are integrated into the store). Even if there was a brilliant direct feedback/support portal & the customer used it to your satisfaction, I believe it's still appropriate to rate a product based on your experience with it. If it crashes, it's going to get a lower rating, regardless of how many reps apologised & promised to fix it.

Re: What happened to "asking for help"?

#47

Post by LogicX »

Here's a fun anecdote which I think summarizes why people don't ask for help:

Two days ago I read an article about a local company; deciding my wife may find enjoyable work with them, I decided to visit their website and careers page. The careers page presented an SSL cert error. I decided to write an email to the DNS administrator explaining that their intermediary signing cert was expired, and why this is a problem, and even provided a helpful link.

Amazingly, I got a reply - within hours, but unfortunately it went like this:

Them 2) You're going to the wrong site, its here:

Me 3) The URL you've provided me 302 redirects to the URL I said is the issue. Here's a paste from wget of this action happening:

Them 4) What browser are you using? Works fine here.

Me 5) I've tested this on 3 machines in 3 different browsers, here's output from browsershots.org showing it doesn't work on 78 other browsers.

Them 6) I'm forwarding this to someone else.

... silence...

Now one must question -- would have I gotten a better response by publicly @mentioning this multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical company that can't get SSL working on their careers site? (Just confirmed its still broken)

(edited for formatting readability)

Re: What happened to "asking for help"?

#48

Post by chops »

The general principle at work here is the "early-adopter" vs "mainstream". Your early users probably recognized that it was a new product and were willing to take a risk with it, recognizing that it's a small organization in charge and that their answers are likely to be answered in a timely manner. Once you've got 10,000+ users and hundreds or thousands of reviews, then you're "established" and people will be much harsher in their reviews, and less likely to contact support expecting some kind of auto-responder and days response time.

Re: What happened to "asking for help"?

#49

Post by extension »

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #45
gaustin wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also quicker, easier and more effective than navigating most companies' support tools. I don't want to spend half an hour or more registering, confirming and entering a bug report that will most likely be ignored.* * A company taking reports seriously in a visible way is a rare occurrence in my experience.

In the Android Market, there's a "Contact Developer" button for every app. Click it and write an email. No "registering" or complex forms to fill out. In my game, there's also a "feedback" button. I say early in the app description to please contact me if you have any problems. I answer any questions that come in, and am polite even to the insulting emails. Well, at least mostly polite. ;) And I typically answer them…

I can understand how anything other than instant gratification from a mobile game would justify a bad review. This is bite-sized software. Most games only provide 30-60 minutes of entertainment anyway. If it takes that long just to get it running, you've pretty much blown it.

I'm a mobile game dev and I don't like it either, but I understand why it's right for users. We've gotta give them a seamless experience, like a restaurant. Yeah, if there's a fly in your soup you can no doubt send it back and get another one, but the damage is done.

Re: What happened to "asking for help"?

#50

Post by kaybe »

ctdonath wrote: post #29

Funny the article never addresses "they don't ask for help because either there's nobody to talk to or nobody who isn't reading from an inapplicable script." After that becomes the dominant customer support experience, seems the only solution is fling bad vibes into the ether[net] and buy a different product. You know the drill. My obligatory anecdote: bought a popular notebook from a big name computer company. Calle…

Obligatory XKCD reference for you: http://xkcd.com/806/ :)
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